Has the M. Night Shyamalan comeback started kicking in? Between the ratings and reviews success of his Fox series Wayward Pines and strong buzz on Blumhouse thriller The Visit, Deadline tell us the writer-director may be reuniting with Joaquin Phoenix for another low-budget, Jason Blum-produced affair. Sadly, details are essentially non-existent, save for the notice that production would commence this November in Philadelphia. Still, with the actor at a career-best point right now (save for whatever you might make of his work in Irrational Man) and his Signs / The Village helmer possibly on the up and up once more, there’s reason to keep an eye out.
Less enticing is a different Deadline report, this one concerning Takashi Miike‘s Shield of Straw — or, rather, an English-language remake from the writing team behind Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen. Paul and Chris Weitz‘s Depth of Field have partnered with the original film’s producers, Nippon, and hired scribes Katrin Benedikt and Creighton Rothenberger to fashion an American version of that 2013 picture, in which police officers must transport and protect a killer who’s been marked by a billion-yen bounty. Let’s hope that, if nothing else, this gets the original film into U.S. circulation.
Finally, Variety have word that Mike Birbiglia began production on a follow-up to 2012’s strong Sleepwalk with Me. Titled Don’t Think Twice, it’s a dramedy concerning passion, fame, and anger, centered on “an improv group [that] loses the lease on their home theater at the same time that one of their cast members gets chosen for the biggest sketch comedy show on TV.” Needless to say, what ensues is “bitterness and backstabbing between friends when they realize that maybe not everyone’s gonna make it after all.” Joining him onscreen are Gillian Jacobs, Keegan-Michael Key, Chris Gethard (Broad City), Kate Micucci (Another Period), and Tami Sagher.